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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Publishers Weekly Nod to the CBC Diversity Committee

CBC Diversity
Committee at Kick-off

Photo Credit:
Elizabeth Bluemle

Last week the CBC Diversity Committee was honored with a wonderfully detailed article in Publishers Weekly. PW writer John A. Sellers contacted the chair, Nancy Mercado; vice-chair, Alvina Ling; and the Children's Book Council to get the whole story behind the formation of the CBC Diversity Committee. Sellers' article takes the reader back to the beginning when the committee that represents CBC Diversity today was just a group of like-minded editors from varying houses trying to make a difference. Fast forward to a year later when their group was brought to the attention of the CBC by Ling and wham!, the CBC Diversity Committee was born.

Not only does the article explain the beginnings of the CBC Diversity Committee and the thought-process of the members behind the initiative, it also highlights some of the great things the Committee and its partners have been up to including the CBC Diversity Goodreads list that is constantly expanding, the school visits performed by committee members at the beginning of this month, and the "It's Complicated!" blog series that was just wrapped up last week.

If you're new to the blog or even a constant follower, check out the PW article and then come back and explore all the different offerings of this site with fresh eyes!

2 comments:

Good article in Publishers Weekly, but people with Google accounts can't leave comments. It'll take time to make this site very useful to all visitors. For example, I typed in the upper left side the word KOREA to see if you have any references to the Korean best seller "Please Look After Mom" by Kyung-sook Shin. I got an article by Stacy, which was nice to read. Kudos to the CBC Diversity Committee for working to increase Diversity in the Book Publishing Industry by having more Diverse people working in the industry and more Diverse books available for readers. The main question in the article was how to convince everyone (writers, literary agents, editors, publishers, bookstores and readers) that Diversity sells and sells well. The answer is by reminding everyone what kind of Diversity sells well. The process of writing, acquiring and selling has to follow what readers want to buy and read. Best wishes.

There's no integrity in giving people what they want, Giora. When the product sells well due to stereotypes that people do not see as stereotypes, everybody loses.

My purpose is returning to this article was to share the news article that started making the rounds the last couple of days, about a study of the books that get reviewed in the New York Times. The article I read is in the Guardian. In a nutshell, most books reviewed are by White authors.